Bucket Falls
by gypsy rosalie
Summary: "It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her." After he's shot, Lucas finds himself in a strange stupour, where one face continues to haunt his thoughts. Written for the Lucket Awards.


**Written as a giftfic for my dear friend EmtheUnicorn and also for the Lucket Awards, off the prompt: **_"It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her."_ **It is a very awesome competition, you should all think about entering.**

* * *

Something very strange had come over Lucas Taylor. A very strange sensation indeed- and he didn't mean the searing pain of the wound in his chest. He dragged himself over the rocks, their rough surface cutting his hands to pieces and the bullet still lodged in his torso making movement unbearable, and all the while his head was spinning. Images of Skye with a gun washed across the back of his eyelids one after another- Skye pulling the trigger, Skye standing in front of him with the smoking barrel of a gun, Skye pulling the trigger, Skye pulling the-

A surge of rage welled up inside him. Who did little Bucket think she was, anyway? Nobody shot Lucas Taylor- nobody who knew what was good for them. Nobody would take Nathaniel's side if they knew what a monster he was- leaving his own wife to die- and Skye _knew_ that- he'd told her. He'd warned her, perhaps more out of spite than the brotherly protection he was trying to appear to have- for she was closer to his old man these days- she had a connection with him Lucas could never have after what happened to Ayani.

And she'd seemed to listen, seemed to come over to his side. He'd thought she was his- and then she'd tied him up in the rover, mocked his gestures of affection, and, the greatest indignity of all, put a bullet through him.

The hot lead was still lodged somewhere within him, and Lucas knew he'd have to get it out soon or he'd be toast, and all his work would have been for nothing. Taylor might be sabotaging his well thought-out plans, taking back the colony, but if he could get himself back to the Sixers' camp, find himself the meds, get the bullet out somehow, he might be able to struggle back to health and start again from scratch. It was like the old saying said- _those who choose to run away live to fight another day._

He kept heaving himself along on all fours, his palms and elbows grazed and stung with rock and grass and sharp bits of shrapnel he was yet to identify, but they were the least of his concerns right now. It was starting to hurt him to breathe, and his head was becoming fuzzier, hazier, perhaps a delirium induced by his critical wounds.

The images of Skye and a smoking weapon started to whirl faster, blurring at the edges until only her eyes were still clear, and the ground was rocking back and forth. He could hear some sort of thunder somewhere nearby, but he had no idea where he was or how far he'd come, or how long it had taken.

Lucas dragged himself onto a flat rock. He needed to lay down for a moment, get his breath back if nothing else. He slumped down against the hard stone, shutting his eyes. Only for a second, he told himself. Just rest for a second, maybe two, and then keep moving.

Or maybe three. Or maybe four.

Or more.

The idea of letting himself sleep, even if it was a dangerous move when he was injured and there were bound to be some of Taylor's cronies after him by now, seemed awfully attractive…

He let the unconsciousness take him, Skye's face, her hands, her weapon, still filling his mind as he blacked out.

_I hate her,_ was his last thought_._

* * *

Lucas could tell he was dreaming, or at the very least hallucinating, because everything seemed far too bright to be real, all the colours too garish and everything was glowing. The sun was in his eyes, if indeed it was the sun, and someone was looking down on him.

'Bucket?' The figure looked like Skye- the same blue eyes watching him as had haunted him since he'd been shot, some sort of taunting light dancing in them.

'You shot me,' he said stupidly.

'That I did, dear brother,' dream-Skye replied, sounding partly like herself and a lot like his father.

'Bucket…you _shot_ me,' he said again, unsure of how he was supposed to respond. 'But you're…you're _Bucket-_ you can't try to kill me!'

'No,' Skye replied cryptically, 'you are.'

'I'm what?'

'You're a bucket, not me.' Okay, this was definitely a dream. This didn't make sense at all.

He blinked. 'What?'

'As in, you're probably going to kick one shortly if you don't get treatment for that wound…'

And then Lucas's chest felt very heavy and his eyes shot open to find himself still lying on the rock, shadows crossing the sky, the unnatural light and the hallucination of Bucket gone. She was right, anyway, even if he was just dreaming her up- he needed to get moving again, needed to fix himself up before he got blood poisoning or worse. He heaved himself up to his hands and knees again.

He could still hear the thundering in the background- oh, perfect, a storm would be just what he needed when he was already lost and disoriented. He listened closer, trying to work out what direction it was coming from and hence avoid it, but as he strained his ears Lucas realised it wasn't thunder at all- it was water. Running water.

He raised his head and saw it.

A waterfall. No, not just a waterfall- Snakehead Falls. He was at Snakehead Falls- and this wasn't just any rock, now that he looked at it. It was covered in symbols and numbers- one of the rocks he'd scrawled his calculations over for Taylor to find.

He knew where he was now. The new Sixer Camp was only a few clicks west of here- Mira had moved it just before he opened the portal. If he could just stay alive for a little while longer, just shift himself a few more miles he'd make it.

But he didn't find himself doing that. Instead, he found his arm scrabbling across the rock, grabbing hold of one of the sharp stones that lay scattered just a foot or two from where he'd been lying. And his hand, all on its own, started to carve something in the rock.

* * *

Skye hadn't been OTG for at least a month now. After the disastrous incidents that had hit Terra Nova one after the other- and all because of her- she'd been extremely cautious, and determined to make herself a model colonist. Taylor had come round eventually, forgiven her for her shady deals with the Sixers, but she couldn't be sure he trusted her even now. And so she'd done her best to make things right- helped rebuild their home from the ruins, done extra hours in the infirmary for no charge, determined to put all her skills to good use.

Tasha and the others had complained about how boring she'd become- she didn't even come out to make moonshine any more, not even to experience a weekly adrenaline rush jumping off the falls, screaming and laughing and hollering with the others. But they didn't understand- hadn't been through what she had, and so she bore their taunts in silence.

But today she hadn't been able to help herself. She'd been feeling so tense lately, and nothing could seem to relieve the stress, not even some of her favourite shish kebabs. She had to do something- get out of here, and so despite her fervent desire not to break any of the rules she had wandered outside the gate alone, and headed down to Snakehead Falls.

The usual jump did clear her head- it allowed her to get rid of all her pent up frustration like it had in the olden days, allowed her to very nearly almost forget the whole messy affair with the Sixers and Lucas Taylor.

Or rather, it would have let her completely forget, had she not climbed out of the water and seen all the familiar markings littering the rocks. The sight of Lucas's scratched calculations instantly took her back to their first meeting, to handing him his completed data and watching his face light up as his work came to life, to the sound of his smooth, malevolent voice crooning the pet name only her parents had ever used.

Lucas Taylor seemed to want to haunt her forever.

She knew when she'd shot him she hadn't seen the last of him. It only took a second of taking her eyes off him and he was gone, disappearing into thin air. Only a fool would believe he was dead, that a couple of shots like that could take him down. He was still out there somewhere- she knew it, and something told her he'd saunter back into her life sooner or later.

She found herself pacing the rock, eyes downward, scanning the seemingly nonsensical symbols. She had no idea what they meant, but they mesmerised her all the same.

_Stop looking at it,_ she told herself. _You need to get home- you're in enough trouble as it is!_

Squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw, she turned to head home, when one of the markings caught her eye.

Was that-no, it couldn't be.

She was just imagining it. There was no point in taking a closer look.

She turned back round anyway, and her heart leapt right up to her throat.

She hadn't been imagining it. It really was there.

It looked newly carved compared to the rest, standing out, cutting through some of the previous scribbles. Its writer must have been in pain, or in a hurry, or both, because the letters- yes, letters, letters she could read, were untidily, almost desperately scratched into the stone, the last one all but an illegible tangle of lines.

He'd been here recently. And he was thinking about her- or looking for her.

She swallowed as her eyes took in the word.

_Bucket._


End file.
